Pereiro joins Contador and Astana

According to his local Galician radio station Radio Galega, 2006 Tour de France champion Oscar Pereiro Sio has signed a one year contract with the Astana team. Like his compatriot – and fellow Tour winner – Alberto Contador, Pereiro’s contract depends on the team’s successful renewal of its ProTour status. This now appears to have happened, so it looks like the Kazakh team will be starting the 2010 season with the winners of three of the last four Tours de France.

Like Contador, Pereiro has been linked with a possible move to the Belgian Quick Step team. But like his compatriot, the 32-year-old sees his near future with the Astana team. He has ridden for the Spanish Caisse d’Epargne team since 2006, after spending four years with the Swiss Phonak Hearing Systems squad.

Pereiro was belatedly awarded the 2006 Tour when American Floyd Landis was stripped of the title after testing positive for synthetic testosterone. It’s unlikely that the Spaniard holds ambitions of adding a second Tour title; rather he relishes the opportunity to work on the winning team.

"Obviously they are the two options on the table,” he told Radio Galega. “Even though I have signed for Astana, if it does not receive a ProTour license, I won’t be an Astana rider; the contract will broken and therefore there would be another option at Quick Step, "

"I have signed [with Astana] for one year," he confirmed.

He has also been linked in recent weeks with Spanish Professional Continental team Xacobea-Galicia, his local team, but this now appears out of the question at least a year. "The problem would be economic I guess," he said, "and things at Xacobea are not going as well as they should."